Tan Yin opened her eyes, and the first thing she saw was Chu Hang’s slightly furrowed brow and handsome features — a face she knew well. But at such close range, eyes meeting his directly, Tan Yin realized Chu Hang was even more handsome than she’d normally registered. He had a pair of stunningly beautiful eyes, and right now those eyes were fixed entirely on her, deep as a still ocean. Tan Yin, caught off guard, fell straight into that gaze, momentarily lost.

But Chu Hang let go of her first, quickly averting his eyes. He pulled away from her almost immediately, as if desperate to put as much distance between them as possible.

After a moment, Chu Hang cleared his throat and regained his composure. He looked at Tan Yin. “Is the cat okay?”

“…”

Fine, so the cat’s all he cares about…

But just as Tan Yin started grumbling internally, Chu Hang’s voice rang out again. “Are you okay too?”

Having been stuck up in a tree for so long, soaked through by the storm, Tan Yin still found her mood lifted entirely just from that simple question.

She smiled. “If the cat’s fine, I’m fine.” Then she suddenly remembered something. “Did you and Anna finish at the art museum so early today?”

Chu Hang glanced at her, then looked away, staring straight ahead. “Oh, something came up, I came back early.”

“Are you going back to the art museum next time?”

“Mm.”

Ignoring her own soaked, uncomfortable state, Tan Yin asked cautiously, “Can I come along next time too?”

Chu Hang shot her a glare. “Can I tie you up to stop you?”

That was as good as tacit permission, Tan Yin thought happily, and then, hit by a gust of cold wind, sneezed twice in a row.

“Aren’t you going to hurry back to your dorm?” Chu Hang glanced at her, saying flatly, “Don’t give me your cold.”

Tan Yin rubbed her nose, glancing down at the cat still cradled in her arms, its front paw still injured.

“Give it to me. I’ll take it to get its wound treated.” Chu Hang’s tone brooked no argument, taking the cat from her arms without waiting for a response. “You go on. At this rate, you might give the cat your cold too.” ???

Fine then… Tan Yin sneezed again. Though Chu Hang’s concern was clearly for the cat, if she didn’t stay strong for herself, who would? Tan Yin figured she’d better take care of herself. She parted ways with Chu Hang and hurried back to her dorm, quickly showering with hot water and changing clothes, then made herself a cup of hot tea.

Only once she was back in her dorm, calming down, did Tan Yin start replaying today’s events — Chu Hang’s sudden, coincidental appearance beneath that tree, and then connecting it to a string of other recent, arguably inexplicable coincidences. She frowned, feeling a nagging unease — it seemed like every time she’d run into Chu Hang while invisible lately, the coincidences had been just a little too perfectly timed? The more she thought about it, the more suspicious it seemed, until she began to wonder whether her invisibility superpower might have vanished???

The more Tan Yin dwelled on it, the more cold sweat broke out. What exactly had she been doing lately while invisible?

Just then, Jiang Yilu pushed open the door and walked into the dorm. Without hesitation, Tan Yin grabbed her best friend. “During that stretch of thunderstorms a few days back, could you see me?”

Jiang Yilu looked confused.

Tan Yin cleared her throat, adding, “Like, there was one day I actually didn’t go out, I was just lying in the dorm sleeping. Let me think, right, that was the day you spent a whole hour doing your makeup in front of the mirror, changed outfits three or four times before finally heading out…”

“Tan Yin!” Jiang Yilu’s face flushed, furious, and she lunged to smack her. “You were invisible that whole time and you didn’t come help me with my eyeliner?! You just sat there invisible watching me struggle with shaky hands for an hour doing my makeup! Whatever happened to friendship?!”

Though thoroughly berated by Jiang Yilu, Tan Yin finally breathed a sigh of relief. She patted her chest, reassured — so her invisibility power was still intact. Jiang Yilu couldn’t see her, Xu Yu couldn’t see her, Chu Hang couldn’t see her either — nobody could see her during thunderstorms.

Still, though this was reassuring — that she had absolute freedom during thunderstorms — as time went on, Tan Yin also found it a little lonely.

After several consecutive days of intermittent thunderstorms, the weather finally cleared, and Tan Yin was finally free to move about openly again. She’d already planned it out — after class, she’d go to the library and check out those architecture textbooks Chu Hang had recommended. But plans rarely survive contact with reality, and just as she reached the library entrance, she was suddenly called out to by Duan Yingfei.

Duan Yingfei was still dressed expensively, her features as pretty as ever, but right now her face was filled with resentment and frustration, her eyes red — clearly, she’d just been crying.

“Tan Yin, stop right there!”

Tan Yin froze — Duan Yingfei looked like she was here for revenge. What had she done to offend this princess lately?

Duan Yingfei clearly noticed the confusion on Tan Yin’s face. She stomped her foot and grabbed Tan Yin by the arm. “Find somewhere private, I have something extremely important and urgent to tell you!”

Almost before Tan Yin could respond, Duan Yingfei dragged her without ceremony to the little garden behind the library, pulling her through the winding paths until they reached an isolated bench in a corner, finally releasing her grip.

Full of questions, Tan Yin asked, “What exactly do you want to tell me?”

Duan Yingfei bit her lip, glaring at Tan Yin. “Don’t you know? It’s about Chu Hang.”

Tan Yin straightened up. “If you’re looking for Chu Hang, aside from just having a professional class with him, I don’t know where he went. He left right after class, I have no idea where he is now. Coming to me won’t help.” She raised her library card. “If there’s nothing else, please don’t interrupt my studying.”

“You still have the mood to study at a time like this?!”

Tan Yin: ???

Duan Yingfei had abandoned all pretense of poise, her eyes reddening again, her voice tinged with fury. “Don’t you like Chu Hang? Liked him enough to jump off a building for him, hang around him constantly with nothing better to do — and yet at a moment like this you’re still thinking about studying?!”

Infected by Duan Yingfei’s emotional state, Tan Yin couldn’t help but tense up too. Had something happened to Chu Hang? But he’d been perfectly fine in class earlier, only just finished not long ago — what could have possibly happened to him?

Seeing Tan Yin’s expression, Duan Yingfei seemed to understand. “You really don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

Duan Yingfei declared dramatically, “Chu Hang is with another girl!”

Tan Yin froze.

Duan Yingfei seemed somewhat satisfied by her reaction this time. “So you really had no idea!” She spoke with the frustration of someone trying to knock sense into another, “Honestly, how do you even go about pursuing someone — aren’t you in the same class as him? You don’t even keep an eye on him? Just let him get stolen away right under your nose by some hussy? Don’t you feel any shame or sense of failure?”

“…”

Tan Yin desperately wanted to point out that it was Duan Yingfei herself who had originally warned her off keeping tabs on Chu Hang in the first place…

Having found an outlet for her bad mood, Duan Yingfei thoroughly scolded Tan Yin from head to toe, then felt a bit awkward about it afterward. She cleared her throat. “Anyway, honestly, this caught even me off guard, so I can’t really blame you either. This woman isn’t from our school — not even Chinese! She’s American.” As Duan Yingfei began discussing this romantic rival, she grew righteously indignant. “Just think about it — how shameless can these people be. Back in the day, the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded China and stole plenty of our antiques, and now they’re here to steal our men too! And she’s even called Anna — the moment I hear a name like that, it screams fake sweetness. In novels, the girls named Anna always seem nice on the surface but never turn out to be decent people…”

Duan Yingfei got more worked up the longer she talked, somehow escalating from a stolen love interest all the way to national pride and historical grievance…

Though Duan Yingfei spoke with such fervor, Tan Yin didn’t quite feel the same way. She thought about it, then couldn’t help but interrupt. “How do you know Chu Hang and Anna are together? Are you sure?”

At this question, Duan Yingfei suddenly became evasive.

Though Tan Yin’s mind was somewhat in turmoil too, she still felt Duan Yingfei’s claim didn’t quite add up — after all, she herself had just gone touring the museum with Chu Hang and Anna not long ago, and hadn’t noticed anything particularly flirtatious between them.

Duan Yingfei stalled a bit longer, and seeing that Tan Yin still didn’t believe her, finally, as if committing to a desperate gamble, spoke the truth. “Tan Yin! It’s real! I’m not lying to you!” She said, somewhat embarrassed, “But I’m telling you, you absolutely can’t repeat this to anyone!”

“Mm.”

“I—I confessed to Chu Hang a few days ago.” Duan Yingfei tried to maintain composure as she explained. “But he turned me down. When I pressed him for a reason, he told me he already had someone he liked.”

Though Tan Yin maintained a shocked expression on the outside, her insides were churning with mixed emotions.

Chu Hang really did have someone he liked, and he’d admitted it…

“Even though I kept pressing him after he rejected me, refusing to give up, Chu Hang wouldn’t tell me who it was. But I secretly followed him around and observed him for several days on my own, and aside from his regular classes, he really hasn’t had any close contact with any other girls, except for that Anna who appeared out of nowhere — he’s spent almost all his free time with her. Do you know where Chu Hang went right after class today? He went to meet that Anna! The two of them met up, chatting and laughing, and then! Here’s the climax!” Duan Yingfei’s voice was full of resentment and accusation, rising and falling dramatically, “Do you know what I saw? Chu Hang, who never so much as glances at other girls normally, actually pulled out an envelope with a giant red heart drawn on it, and handed it right to Anna!”

Duan Yingfei’s eyes reddened again as she spoke. “Chu Hang didn’t even glance at my confession letter — sent it straight back, rejected me without leaving any room for hope whatsoever — and yet he handed his own confession letter to this Anna with a smile, his eyes full of tenderness!”

Tan Yin had been able to console herself that Duan Yingfei’s claim was just speculation, but faced with this ironclad evidence of a heart-adorned confession envelope, she could no longer deceive herself.

Chu Hang really did have someone he liked.

Tan Yin’s heart was a mess of overwhelming panic, unease, and disappointment. She remembered how she’d written a love letter every single day for half a year, and Chu Hang had never once looked at a single one — and yet here he was, handing his own confession letter to Anna.

“What’s so great about that Anna anyway — her skin isn’t even that fair, her eye makeup is way too exaggerated, so aggressive-looking, not gentle or cute at all, and always wearing that bold red lipstick, doesn’t look like a decent girl at all. Plus her Chinese isn’t great either, communication would be a problem long-term. If Chu Hang wants a girlfriend, he’d be better off with you than someone like that!”

Perhaps because they now shared a common enemy, Duan Yingfei’s tone toward Tan Yin suddenly grew friendlier, attacking Anna with bitter resentment, patting the dazed Tan Yin on the shoulder with unexpected familiarity. “I mean it, honestly, even if you managed to land Chu Hang, I wouldn’t feel that unbalanced about it. After all, you did jump off a building for him! I can respect that.”

“…”

Seeing Tan Yin still silent, Duan Yingfei grew anxious. “Tan Yin, what’s wrong with you? Why aren’t you sharing my outrage at all? Are you really giving up this easily?! You’re the only woman who’s ever managed to catch Chu Hang’s attention through sheer persistent disaster after disaster! You deserve to at least be in the running! You could at least put up a fight against Anna, and you’re just wilting like this?! Where’s your fighting spirit?!”

This was starting to sound like some kind of pep rally…

Tan Yin glanced up at Duan Yingfei twice. Still trapped in her own low, heavy mood, she had no energy left to respond, and simply muttered listlessly, “What else can I do? Chu Hang doesn’t like me anyway. What am I supposed to do about it?”

That much was true, and even Duan Yingfei couldn’t argue with it for a moment. But she wasn’t the type to give up easily, and before long, she patted Tan Yin’s shoulder again, speaking earnestly. “How about this — join forces with me.”

Duan Yingfei paused. “With this common enemy before us, we should set aside our past grudges and unite, focus outward, and take Anna out of the picture together first. Once Chu Hang’s single again, whoever ends up winning his affection after that is purely a matter of individual merit.”

Tan Yin sighed inwardly. Duan Yingfei, for all her spoiled, self-centered tendencies, was fundamentally still naive at heart.

Feelings didn’t operate on logic; love wasn’t something that could be extinguished through interference. Some things were like sparks — the more you tried to obstruct them, the more you tried to blow them out, the fiercer they burned instead.

Chu Hang wasn’t the type to fall easily into love; he kept a certain distance from everyone, and it was hard to imagine him willingly letting someone into his life. A man like that — once he genuinely liked someone, no external interference could possibly change his mind.

Tan Yin was in no mood to study anymore right now; all she wanted was to go back and bury herself under her covers to escape the reality that Chu Hang already had someone else…

Even though she’d never really dared to hope Chu Hang could like her back, as long as he remained single, as long as he hadn’t fallen for anyone else, Tan Yin had still felt like there was hope — that the small feelings of her secret crush still had somewhere to live.

But now… now he belonged to someone else.

Tan Yin felt, in this moment, as if she’d been transported back to that summer of her college entrance exams — the summer her father had forced her to give up her passion for art and apply to the architecture program instead. Life hadn’t changed drastically on the surface; it wasn’t as if she’d lost a limb or anything so dramatic. Days went on the same as always, she could still eat and drink normally, seemingly not even that upset — except she could never quite feel truly happy again after that.

And now, now, under Chu Hang’s influence, she’d finally started genuinely falling in love with architecture, had found a new dream in her heart, had built her whole vision of a future standing shoulder to shoulder with Chu Hang in the field of architecture — and though her dream of becoming an excellent architect still remained, Chu Hang was gone from that picture now.

It felt like some enormous cruel joke.

Today of all days, sunny and clear, exactly the kind of weather Tan Yin had been longing for, the breeze cool and the sky cloudless — and yet Tan Yin inexplicably felt a tightness in her chest, breathless.

Duan Yingfei clearly had no idea what was going on inside Tan Yin’s head. She just kept calling after her retreating back, “Hey, Tan Yin, don’t leave! I’m not done talking yet! Think it over carefully — I really think we should form an Avengers alliance! Declare war on that capitalist Anna!”

Tan Yin had no mood for any of that. She thought, forget an Avengers alliance — even the Guardians of the Galaxy couldn’t get her interested right now. She just wasn’t in the mood.